Tuesday, March 30, 2010

David Brian Stone, the recently arrested leader of the alleged domestic terrorist organization the Hutaree Militia, was described by his former fiancée as a fanatic Ron Paul supporter. (At 1:30 of the below-embedded video.)

In an interview with Fox News' Shepard Smith, Andrea Harsh described her former fiancé's love of guns, violent opposition to President Obama, and support for Ron Paul as his three main preoccupations.

Meanwhile, Stone and his militia have gotten some support from fellow Ron Paul supporters. One, writing illiterately on a forum called the Gold is Money Forum (which is largely devoted to organizing support for both Ron Paul and his son Rand) writes (read here):

what did they do wrong .... all i have read was there in Jail ....... FOR WHAT ......... being arm and ready get you lock up now

And, worse, this post claiming that the Hutaree Militia were guilty of nothing other than being critical of Jews, and that's not against the law.

Worse than that was posted on the Ron Paul Forums, a website maintained by Ron Paul's political organization (read here). The author calls himself "torchbearer":

So this is how the jews felt in germany when the jackboots were rounding them up.

torchbearer ends this and every other of his posts with a link to campaign material for the Rand Paul for U.S. Senate campaign.

Speaking of the Rand Paul for Senate campaign, I found the following video posted in the same Gold is Money Forum that had the supporive messages for the Hutaree Militia (read here).

Rand Paul gave that pro-gun, anti-Obama speech the day before the Hutaree Militia arrests to an audience some of whom were ostentatiously armed with automatic weapons. He said

I'm not armed today, but I feel pretty safe. I feel like I have a private security detail out there.

UPDATE (3/30/10 4:30pm): Another connection. The Hutaree's YouTube page is mutually linked to a Liberty Tree YouTube page maintained by a Ron Paul supporter and apparent Hutaree Militia supporter. (Read here.) That YouTube user, "LibertyTreeRadio", posts videos of Hutaree Militia training, Ron Paul speeches and lectures on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories given in front of a Ron Paul banner. In the video embedded below, which was taken from the LibertyTreeRadio YouTube page, the speaker will tell you that Jews are not actually Jewish but Satanists of Central Asian descent, and that they control the world through the banking system.

Cynthia McKinney, who in recent years has worked increasingly with the racist far-right, has said in an interview with Chris Hedges that

“It is time for us to stop talking about right and left. The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists... I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized."

I've written extensively about McKinney's connections to far-right racists (most recently here). McKinney has grown increasingly bold in making common cause with figures of the far-right, largely around opposition to Israel and promotion of conspiracy theories (read here). I believe that this is the first time that she has commented about such connections in an interview, albeit in vague terms to those unaware of her right-wing ties.

From reading his column, I doubt that Hedges is aware of McKinney's work with the far-right. He takes McKinney's statement to mean only that that the greatest threat Americans face comes not from "extremists", but from the government and "elites", a belief which is a focus of Hedges' current work. He sees McKinney using white supremacists merely as a point of reference for this relative threat, not attempting to justify actually working with them. Similarly, McKinney's renunciation of the distinction between left and right comes across in the column as arguing that our representatives are equally bad regardless of whether they're left or right. As for Hedges' view of McKinney's willingness to work across ideological lines, he has no comment. He lets the comment stand for itself as a sort of search for common ground across ideological lines.

I wonder how Hedges would feel about McKinney's statements if he knew that she has been happy to work with a number of supremacists in recent years, and that she shows every sign of believing that the distinction between left and right (including far-right) is unimportant? I suspect that, if he knew just how literally McKinney was speaking, he might have had a much different impression of her comments.

[CORRECTION (4/2/10): I've been in touch with Hedges since this was originally posted and he says he was aware of some of McKinney's work with far-right racists.. He also says that he supports working with far-right and racist groups and individuals when working against a more powerful enemy. I intend to write more about this soon.]

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

That's how Michael Scheuer responded to a question posed by the National Journal to a panel of experts on national security issues concerning U.S.-European relations. The question, headlined Can America Count On Europe Anymore?, asked:

"The demilitarization of Europe -- where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it -- has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared in a Feb. 23 speech to NATO officers and others at the National Defense University in Washington.

Is Gates right? What exactly does "the demilitarization of Europe" mean for U.S. national security interests? Should Americans care if Europe has to live in the shadow of a militarily superior post-Soviet Russia? Is NATO, alas, a lost cause?

Gates' perspective also suggests that, unless the United States is to go it alone in the world, it will need to cultivate partners among rising nation-states, such as India and Brazil, that are more or less U.S.-friendly (at least not enemies) and, unlike Europe, are rebuilding their militaries. In short, should the U.S. be planning for a post-Europe world? Does Europe still matter? Can we count on Europe any more?

Scheuer's answer to this bears the startling headline "Europe is a wheezing corpse". It demonstrates in stark terms that Scheuer's opinions about foreign policy have become extreme, ill-considered and, on several levels, xenophobic. He writes:

If there is anything for the U.S. to learn from Europe it is that we should leave all the Europeans home when we go to war. Notwithstanding the always expected portion of traditional American Europe-envy seen here -- "Oh, gosh, isn't Europe just so ...", fill in the blank with civilized, sophisticated, thoughtful, modern, and all the other fawning, puke-inducing adjectives -- Europe is a wheezing, expendable, near-corpse.

Europe is dying demographically; culturally sensitive and multicultural to the point of continental suicide; quaking in fear over a domestic Muslim problem they refuse to name; and above all a gang of cowards preening as moral paragons. We need these governments in wartime like we need a second Obama term -- that is not at all, ever. Go to war with the Europeans and you extend the war, don't kill a tenth of the number of enemy and their supporters that merit killing, and come home without winning and with the same war to fight over again.

We should get out of NATO as quickly as possible, surely before the bomb explodes that we madly lit the fuse to by helping the Europeans to rip Kosovo from Orthodox Serbia and make it into an Islamic state. When the Serbs exercise their perfectly legitimate right to reclaim their stolen province -- and they will and should -- we must have acted to make ouselves [sic] long gone from the Balkans. Likewise, the phone should be off the hook when the EU finds that it cannot "fix" Greece and calls Washington for help.

It is past time for the Europeans to grow up and fend for themsleves [sic], and it is likewise far past time for American presidents to learn that when we go to war we should depend on our own strong right arm and not cripple that arm by bringing along Europeans who are only good for whining about human rights, staying in their cantonements to avoid being shot at, and paying the enemy to shoot at Americans rather than themselves.

Gates' NATO speech was intended to show the other nations of NATO the importance of their military alliance with the U.S., to raise the spector of that alliance falling by the wayside, and to lobby and shame them not to abandon their commitment to it. By raising the idea that, should current trends continue, the U.S. would increasingly look outside Western Europe for military alliances, Gates attempted to put the fear of God in our NATO allies by implying that NATO is more valuable to Europe than the U.S. Scheuer's column takes this view to its extreme, arguing that the nations of Europe have nothing at all to offer the U.S. as military allies, then counters Gates by arguing that this is somehow a good thing. These ideas, and the others expressed by Scheuer in his column, are ill-considered for several reasons.

Scheuer, unlike Gates, belittles European contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and completely disregards the importance of both European counter-terrorism efforts and intelligence produced by European nations to our counter-terrorism efforts -- subjects with which Scheuer should be familiar from his work with the CIA. Rather than seeking greater support for the U.S. by our NATO allies, Scheuer spurns these allies, saying that we don't want them and don't need them. This assessment of NATO seems to be rooted more in ideologically based isolationist opposition to foreign alliances than in sound analysis of the risks and benefits of cutting off such alliances. Scheuer's ideologically based rejection of Europe, verging on hysteria, contrasts sharply with Gates' pragmatic, cagey approach. Instead of working to build real U.S. strength by strengthening alliances, as is Gates, Scheuer seeks to cut off alliances out of an illusory strength.

Scheuer's utter rejection of U.S. connections with Europe as somehow elitist is based in part on an archaic American cultural xenophobia. The United States is arguably the cultural capitol of the world, and has nothing to fear from cultural commerce with Europe. Scheuer's dismissal of Europe as culturally irrelevant to the U.S. is an echo of the isolationist past, rooted both in a fear of the alien and a sense of cultural inferiority. These views have no relevance at all to the current world which is characterized by ease of commerce and communication over international borders, diminishing the sense of difference. Such commerce has driven a shift of power from governments to corporations and individuals, something which a purportedly small government, laissez-faire conservative like Scheuer should support. Judging by the absurd terms with which he characterizes ties to Europe, Scheuer seems unable to see past his own prejudices to fully consider this issue in pragmatic or coherent ideological terms.

Scheuer goes on to make a series of shocking and false statements concerning Kosovo, citing these as a basis to argue that the U.S. should leave NATO. He writes that the United States tore Kosovo away from Serbia and created an "Islamic state", thus giving the false impression that Kosovo is an Islamist theocracy. Then, he asserts without supporting argument that the establishment of this purported "Islamic" Kosovo" lit a fuse which will eventually blow Europe up. Based onthese invented facts and on non-existent logic, he argues that U.S. must withdraw from NATO. Scheuer even goes so far as to say that Serbia (which he describes as "Orthodox Serbia") would be right to invade and retake "Islamic Kosovo". Such fantasies, veering between nightmares of Muslim killing Serb and dreams of Christian reconquest, would be more at home in Serbian or Russian far-right propaganda than in a sane argument about U.S. foreign policy. They of course have no bearing on a serious consideration of whether the U.S. should remain in NATO.

Kosovo is anything but the theocratic threat to secular democracy that Scheuer fears. Read what Michael Totten wrote about Kosovo in the Wall Street Journal (here): that Kosovo is "overwhelmingly pro-American", has excellent relations with Israel, and that most Muslims in Kosovo follow a modern, moderate Islam which sets it apart from most other Muslim nations. In fact, Kosovo has been shunned by most Arab nations for precisely these reasons. Scheuer seems to be following the Serbian nationalist party line in attributing incidents of anti-Serbian violence in Kosova to a government-sponsored jihad rather than to ethnic conflict and backlash for Serbian oppression. Beyond this, and at the heart of his logical fallacy, he also makes no argument whatsoever to support his contention that Kosovo is a tinderbox which will set off a continent-wide Christian-Muslim conflict. That sort of wild-eyed fear mongering does not argue persuasively for the United States to abandon its NATO allies.

Taking fear-mongering and xenophobia to a level approaching bigotry, Scheuer next makes a series of statements concerning Europe's Muslim population which attempt to argue that their presence makes European nations incapable of countering Islamist aggression. This argument (such as it is an argument at all -- it's merely an assertion) again ignores the efforts which European nations actually do make to counter such aggression. If anything, the Muslim presence in Europe makes prevention of terrorism a greater priority to Europe than to the U.S. It is true that European nations frequently accommodate Islamist intolerance in the name of countering intolerance of Muslims, but this in no way should diminish recognition of European efforts to balance, firstly, individual liberties with security needs, and, secondly, the interests of its minorities with the interests of the nation as a whole. These are balances to which Scheuer seems indifferent. Worse than that, Scheuer blames ethnic minorities, the vast majority of whom are innocent bystanders to conflicts about geopolitical issues, for decisions and trends far outside their influence. This is the stuff of the National Front or British National Party and has no place at all in a mainstream American forum. Whatever differences exist between the United States and its various NATO allies, attempts to blame European Muslims for such differences verge on bigotry and should be rejected.

Lastly, Scheuer says that United States government's "phone should be off the hook" with respect to Greece -- apparently referring to Greece's current fiscal crisis. The idea that Scheuer proposes -- ignoring the problem because it doesn't effect us -- is the sort of head in the sand approach to foreign crises that, again, seems to derive more from 1930's isolationism than from contemporary thinking. The U.S. and every other country need to pay close attention to economic crises on that scale wherever and whenever they occur -- no one's phone should be off the hook. The argument that we shouldn't care enough to help in any way is so vague and overly broad as to be both meaningless and dangerous. It derives from a fog of ideological bias, and ignores, much as opposition to government intervention to stave off the collapse of the U.S. financial system ignored, the very real risk that a second Great Depression could occur. While current economic conditions may prevent direct intervention by the U.S., the idea that it should not use its still considerable influence in any way to stabilize Greece's currency makes no sense even from the exclusively self-interested American standpoint espoused by Scheuer. The world's economies are simply too inter-connected to endorse the economic isolation he either believes still exists or advocates returning to.

Looking for a common thread in Scheuer's scatter-shot column, each item reflects defeatism with respect to NATO in particular and alliances in general. He frames issues in terms that make every problem seem insoluble, every goal seem unattainable and every common interest seem irrelevant. This school of isolationism is more interested in marshaling arguments in support of predetermined conclusions than they are in pursuing objective analysis and problem-solving policy recommendations. By instilling paranoia about alliances, isolationists such as Scheuer seek to create in the public mind illusory problems that only they can solve. It's a global con game.

Scheuer has previously argued at great length that Israel is "expendable", to use his word -- of no use at all as an ally to the U.S., and without even the right to exist. He has gone so far as to argue that Americans who differ with his extreme views about Israel do so out of disloyalty to their country, calling them "Israel firsters" and a "fifth column". He has recently taken this to a new level by publishing a column in which he argues that the threat to national security presented by Israel compels the U.S. to demand that those dual citizenship or other formal connections to Israel submit their names, addresses and information about their activities to the federal government. He also literally advocates that this information concerning every Israeli-American be published by the State Dept., shockingly singling out Israelis to be subject to an invasion of privacy which would certainly threaten their civil liberties and personal safety. (I hope to write something about that shortly.) Now he has also declared Europe to be "expendable". That he also considers disagreement with his views concerning Europe equivalent to being disloyal to the United States is reflected in the harshness of his language. All of us traitors who care about Europe and Israel just make him want to puke.

While it may be tempting to dismiss Scheuer's ravings as the stuff of talk radio or teaparty rallies, we shouldn't do so. By dint of his former position in the CIA, Scheuer is still regarded as an expert on national security and foreign affairs , writing books and columns, giving interviews to a wide range of media outlets (especially when bin Laden is in the news), and advising politicians, such as Ron Paul, in whose 2008 presidential campaign he played an advisory role. So long as foolish ideas such as his are taken seriously and have influence, they need to be countered.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

About a year ago, I wrote a number of pieces on Cynthia McKinney's increasing connections to far-right bigots such as former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Mahathir; his chief aide, conspiracy theory author Matthias Chang (read here and here); and Islamic Party of Britain leader David Pidcock (read here). I also wrote about her anti-Semitic interviews with hate bloggers Daryl Bradford Smith and Noel "Ognir" Ryan (read here). McKinney's supporters and representatives of the U.S. Green Party have defended her work with this motley crew, sometimes stating that condemning McKinney's work with them amounts to "guilt by association", acknowledging by implication that this group has some troubling beliefs or worse. At other times, McKinney supporters have actually defended the extreme views of this group.

Now I've found two additional far right figures for whom McKinney has expressed her support and with whom she's made common cause. I've also discovered that she's done another interview with the two hate bloggers about whom I wrote last year.

Non-denial denials

The information about McKinney's ties to Chang and Pidcock which I published here last spring appears to have been the basis at least in part for an article written by Rob Waters which was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center in their December, 2009 Intelligence Report. (Read here.) For that article, Waters got Scott McLarty, a Green Party official, to go on the record to deny that McKinney shared the views espoused by her far-right associates, calling such a conclusion "guilt by association". However, McLarty failed to find any problem with a lengthy quote from Chang's book The Shadow Money Lenders which McKinney posted on a Green Party website, in which a long list of Jewish bankers were accused of plotting to destabilize the world in order to take control of it.

Anita Stewart, a Green Party official and staffer to McKinney (during the 2008 presidential campaign and, since then, with McKinney's Dignity Action Network), posted a gnomic comment to one of my articles about McKinney's ties to Chang. She defended McKinney's endorsement of Chang's conspiracy theories as intrinsically valid. Stewart's response, which, like McLarty's, failed to contend with the bigotry or far-right ideology of McKinney's allies, stated that, if McKinney agrees with them, they're probably right. (See comments here.)

As you read McKinney's praise of Chang, and McLarty's and Stewart's defense of that praise, keep in mind that Chang has written that he was inspired by "the American Free Press, The Barnes Review, The Spotlight, and the truth seekers that I have long admired, Harry Elmer Barnes, Willis Carto, Michael Collins Piper, Christopher Petherick, Eustace Mullins (whose life-long persecution by the Police State is a disgrace to the Constitution), (and) Col. Donn de Grand Pre..." That's a long list, and some of the names are obscure ones. Suffice it to say that there is a common thread of bigotry running through that list.

Also keep in mind that McKinney's connection to Chang is more than lip service. Chang, as chief aide to former PM Mahathir of Malaysia, runs a foundation purportedly devoted to the absolute pacifist position of making all war illegal. (Read here.) That foundation, far from actually campaigning to ban all war, focuses exclusively on falsely accusing Israel of crimes such as genocide. Cynthia McKinney has participated as a keynote speaker, presumably for pay, in at lest three of this foundations' international conferences (two in Kuala Lumpur and one in London) where she participated in this ritualistic hate in the name of peace.

Compared by her friends to Father Coughlin

While McKinney's supporters defend her by (falsely) claiming that she does not make anti-Semitic statements herself, the same defense cannot conceivably be made for those who interview her. In one of last year's "Ognir" interviews with McKinney, Ognir/Ryan introduced her with a lengthy discussion of "banking Jewry" having controlled the world for the past four centuries. In another, Ryan asked McKinney about Rahm Emanuel, saying "(h)e's got Jew nationality and Jew loyalties." Far from condemning this obviously bigoted remark, McKinney replied by saying "I think that what you're talking about is who controls the U.S. government". She went on to explain that she left the Democratic Party precisely because she believes it to be controlled by this conspiracy.

In last year's interviews, Ryan's questions to McKinney expounded elaborate, bizarre conspiracy theories concerning Jewish culpability for 9/11, the world financial crisis, capitalism, communism, and, absurdly, medical marijuana and gay marriage. McKinney failed to disagree with the interviewers' assertions once, sometimes going so far as to say that she knew what the interviewer meant by this drivel, thus giving her tacit support. On several occasions, she stated her explicit support. She also showed her own ties to reality to be a bit shaky, comparing herself to civil rights hero Rosa Parks. (Read my original posts on this for more details including transcripts.)

Since I last wrote about her interviews with Ryan and fellow hate blogger Daryl Bradford Smith, McKinney has returned to give them additional interviews. In one conducted by Smith and Ryan on January 14, 2010, Smith introduced McKinney as the best thing to happen in U.S. politics since the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic radio preacher Father Coughlin. (Listen below at about 6:20.)

This comparison, which most people would consider insulting, is a high complement for Smith, who features portraits of both McKinney and Coughlin and recordings of Coughlin's infamous post-Kristallnacht broadcasts on his website. (Read here. Smith also features on his website the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and conspiracy theories about Jews causing the swine flu epidemic.) If one of McKinney's critics were to denounce her by comparing her to Coughlin, that person would be swamped with passionate denials and vicious denunciations impugning the comparison as somehow motivated by a conservative, "Zionist" or even Jewish bias. When the person actually interviewing McKinney makes that comparison, we hear the sound of silence.

from Daryl Bradford Smith's iamthewitness.com website:

McKinney says she's a fan of anti-Semitic author Michael Collins Piper, he dedicates a book to her

Cynthia McKinney has played the double-game of working with increasing brazenness with racists of the far-right, even as she says through her spokesmen that we shouldn't judge her by her friends. I wonder how they explain the fact that McKinney has declared herself, via Facebook, to be a fan of the anti-Semitic author Michael Collins Piper. Piper has worked for decades in the employ of Willis Carto, one of the United States' most infamous far-right racists.

Author Leonard Zeskind describes Carto as one of the two foremost leaders of the U.S. "white nationalist" movement in the latter half of the 20th Century, and Piper as Carto's "loyal assistant". (Read here and here. A Piper interview with Carto is available here. [Link goes directly to RAM file.]) Carto is the founder of a number of extreme right wing groups such as the Liberty Lobby (which "appealed to both anti-communists and arch-segregationists", read here) and the Holocaust-denial group Institute for Historical Review, among his countless other similarly oriented projects. Piper has worked for the newspaper founded and published by Carto, American Free Press, since that paper's founding, and has participated in a number of Carto's Holocaust-denial conferences. (Read here and here.) Piper has also been described as a "far-right emissary to the Islamic world", attempting to unite Islamists and the U.S. far-right around the common causes of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism . (Read here and here. My earlier article on Piper can be read here.)

Piper, along with David Duke and a rogue's gallery of others, participated in Holocaust denial conferences hosted by far-right Russian Nationalists (read here), and, infamously, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who invited Piper to the Tehran Holocaust denial conference as his personal guest (read here). It would be fair to say of him that Piper has made the production of books, columns and radio programs fabulizing Jewish conspiracies to control the world his life's work. He has, among other things, accused Jews of assassinating U.S. presidents, secretly controlling the government, financial system and media, and, literally, practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism.

McKinney supporters might be interested to learn that Piper's employer Willis Carto worked in George Wallace's segregationist presidential campaign as a leader of Youth for Wallace and subsequently set up an organization which morphed into the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Both Carto and Piper have for many years worked with former-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, and continue to do so. (For a recent example, read here.) Carto was a key backer both of Duke's 1988 run for U.S. president (read here) and Duke's 2004 "New Orleans Protocol" outlining a political strategy for U.S. "European Nationalists" (i.e. white supremicists). (Read here.) The ADL says that Carto is "one of the most influential American anti-Semitic propagandists of the past 50 years... he has been associated with nearly every significant far-right movement in the country, from neo-Nazism to militias, segregationism to Holocaust denial." (Read here. For Searchlight Magazine's take on Carto, read here. Examples of Carto's racist letters to Verne Kaub, a Liberty Lobby board member and author, are available here and here.)

Not only has McKinney now declared her support for Carto's assistant, Michael Collins Piper, Piper has reportedly declared his support for Cynthia McKinney by dedicating his bookThe Judas Goats: The Enemy Withinto her as follows. (Read here.)

To the Honorable Cynthia McKinney
Democratic Congresswoman from Georgia

. . .For daring to speak out and raise questions about what really happened on 9-11 and about the dangerous U.S. policy toward Israel and the Arab world — a policy that has made America many enemies around the globe — Cynthia McKinney was driven from the U.S. Congress in 2002. Judas Goat — a former Republican, no less — was recruited to run against Miss McKinney in the Democratic Party primary.GOP organizers moved into the Democratic Party to assist the Judas Goat. Tons of Zionist money poured into Georgia to help Miss McKinney’s challenger. In the end, Miss McKinney was defeated.But two years later Cynthia McKinney made a comeback and she sits in the U.S. Congress today — a voice for sane policies and one who still does not hesitate to speak the truth. And as this is written, they are moving against her once again. Her voice is one for all good people. Dear God: Let there be more like Cynthia McKinney!

Piper's Judas Goats book alleges that the Jews control the world via dual Zionist and Trostkyite conspiracies, both under the control of the Rothschild family. Piper describes it as supplement to a book called Synagogue of Satan by Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, which Piper calls "an overwhelming detailed history of how Jewish power and influence -- particularly through the venue [sic] of the Rothschild banking dynasty -- how that influence came to rule supreme". (He's nothing if not consistent.) He talks about the book at length in an interview with far-right radio hate preacher Texe Marrs, audio of which is embedded below.

(Listen here at 6:30.)

Michael Collins Piper also has at least one connection to the previously discussed anti-Semitic blogger Noel "Ognir" Ryan. The below-embedded video, which I found on Ryan's website TheInformationUnderground.com (here), features audio from a recent Piper radio program. In that program, the administrator Ryan's internet forum and radio programs (under the name "LordLindsey" -- he goes by "Lindsey" here), tells Piper how pleased he was with Ognir's McKinney interview. (At about 3:20 of the video below.) The reason? McKinney alleged in that interview (at great length) that (in Lindsey's words) "Zionist Jews control more than 99% of the United States Congress". (You can listen here, at first link, to that McKinney interview.) [NOTE: Among the ever-growing list of incredibly offensive material available on the TheInformationUnderground.com, is a video which attempts to glorify Holocaust Museum murderer Jim von Brunn. View here.]

Considering that Michael Collins Piper does little else but promote the grossest bigotry, I would be very interested to hear from McKinney what it is about him that she supports. Maybe there's some aspect of his work that's escaped public notice that McKinney would like to draw attention to with her praise of him. I would also be interested in hearing the reactions of progressives to McKinney's support for this advocate of the racist far-right.

"I am in Turkey with Israel Shamir!!!"

That's how Cynthia McKinney giddily headlined her article on her meeting with Israel Shamir in Ankara last year (read here). She writes (here):

I can hardly believe this moment!! Israel Shamir has written about me and lifted my spirits when I was most down. Even from faraway Israel, he understood my plight and dared give voice to the truth. They say that sometimes distance gives clarity--and certainly in Israel's case, in observing my serial targeting, he saw what many inside the United States could not see. Despite his writings, I never met him until this moment, just a few minutes ago!! We are speaking together this afternoon in Ankara, Turkey. He has already sent his message out on his list and so I include it here for you. I will send my message to you later. I will bring these contacts from around the world that I have made on behalf of peace, home to the United States so that we can more easily achieve our objectives for justice and peace and dignity in the area of policy where we and the world need it the most. We are a part of something much bigger than us individually, and our moment is now.

I guess they hit it off. For those who don't know of Shamir, he's a shady character who got his start working as journalist for a prominent Russian, far-right, ultra-nationalist newspaper under the pen name "Robert David" . (His legal name has, at various times, been Jöran Jermas or Adam Ermash.) He spent some time living in Israel under the assumed name "Israel Shamir". After this, he Portrayed himself in the West as an Israeli and a leftist, and has focused largely on producing anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda. He has meanwhile continued to maintain an ideological double identity, publishing in Eastern European languages and Russian from an overtly far-right perspective. Although he is ethnically Russian and a naturalized citizen of Sweden, he touts the fact that he lived in Israel under his assumed name (read here and here and here and here), and is frequently cited as an "Israeli journalist" when used as source. This identity is useful to writers who either want to put an acceptable face on what they know to be anti-Israel disinformation, or are credulous enough to believe in the fairy tales he promotes. I wrote about one such instance, Alison Weir's reliance on Shamir's promotion of literal truth of the blood libel, here and here. Weir cited him as an "Israeli journalist" working to uncover what she and Shamir describe as Israel's campaign of murdering people to steal their organs. Both Weir and McKinney still work with Shamir and cite him as an authority in spite of his having been denounced as an anti-Semite by Hussein Ibish and Ali Abunimah (read here), and as an impostor and charlatan by countless others.

To cite one out of countless examples of Israel Shamir's extremism, he counts among his close ideological allies the infamous Horst Mahler, whom Shamir calls "(a) friend of Palestine and anti-zionist, an anti-imperialist freedom fighter". Read here. Mahler, formerly a leader of the far left Red Army Fraction, has been for many years a leader Germany's racist far right, largely motivated by extreme anti-Semitism (as evidenced here). In 2003, Mahler founded a Holocaust denial organization he called Verein zur Rehabilitierung der wegen Bestreitens des Holocaust Verfolgten. (Read their press release here. Co-signers of the organization's charter included Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, and Frederick Töben.) In subsequent years, Mahler has been convicted several times of crimes connected to his activism connected to denial of Nazi war crimes. In a 2007 interview with the German edition of Vanity Fair, an English translation of which "Shamir" makes available on his website (read here), Mahler said of Jews that they "are the embodiment of a god, who according to our understanding is Satan, and they play a tragic role in the corruption and negation of the life of all the other Peoples". (In that interview, Mahler greeted his interviewer by saying "Heil Hitler!”, and went on to praise Hitler, defend his own father's Nazism, and equate it with leftist opposition to "American imperialism".)

Horst Mahler and "Israel Shamir" in 2008

Mahler (second from left) with sign reading "There was no Holocaust"

"Israel Shamir" has found a very willing subject for his disinformation in Cynthia McKinney. With the instincts of a gifted con artist he found the sweet spot where her prejudices intersect with his agenda. Via McKinney, Shamir promotes the idea that Europe's neo-Nazis and Russia's ultra-nationalists are funded by Jews as part of a global war on Islam, and that this purported covert war is intrinsic to Israel's existence. This is a bit of misdirection that someone with Shamir's connections to Russian ultra-nationalists -- connections he has been careful to conceal -- might find very useful.

Shamir's writing style can be a bit diffuse, but while following his train of thought might be tricky, you can be certain as to its destination. Here's a portion of the text of his Ankara speech as posted by McKinney on her Facebook page:

The problem is the Jewish state. Not only does it besiege Gaza and destroy a football stadium in el Bireh. These are local problems, painful but local. The Jewish state (It is not a Jewish state. It is a Zionist state. S1000+) focuses Jewish power all over the world into action. Without a Jewish state, this power would disperse; it would remain local, it would remain chaotic, probably it would be subdued by the forces of assimilation. Israel focuses these chaotic forces and concentrates them into action.

This action is against Islam. Not only against Islam, but Dar ul Islam (the Islamic world) is a prime target. In the US , the Jewish Neocons led their country into a crusade against Iraq and Afghanistan ; now they are spearheading the push against Iran.

They have formed a powerful front against President Obama and have turned him into a laughing stock after he uttered a few words of wisdom about Palestine .

In Europe , if you inspect the coffers of anti-Muslim neo-Nazi groups, you'll find that they thrive on Jewish support. In Russia , Jewish nationalists and Zionists try to rally the Russians against their Muslim brethren. Sometimes they do it under cover of the Russian Church , or of Russian nationalism. I wrote about this recently, as I had discovered that the most fervently anti-Muslim forces in Russia are organised by crypto-Zionists.

Even if a Palestinian state were to be established and recognised, it wouldn’t stop Israeli attempts to undermine its neighbours, to bomb Iran , to sow the seeds of discord from Russia to France , from Turkey to India . Israel 's too powerful intelligence services would keep meddling. Neither would it neutralise the armed forces of Israel , and you know as well as anybody that the generals do not give up their toys, their privileges or their influence easily. The Israeli military machine is so powerful that it would seek to exercise its might.

Consider that the source for this incoherent conspiracy theory has been associated with precisely the far-right Russian nationalist movement most ardently connected to both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic violence in Russia. I tend to believe that McKinney (like the rest of Shamir's audience in Ankara) is oblivious to this fact and is taking him at face value to be an Israeli leftist. But that sort of gullibility is no excuse for the promotion of this sort of deranged and hateful conspiracy theory. Regardless of whom McKinney believes Shamir to be, the intent of this string of lies is clearly stated: to drive further wedges between Muslims and Jews, to oppose a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel and to deny Israel's right to exist. In promoting these views, McKinney, like Shamir, should be regarded as an anti-peace activist.

"Guilt by association": a catch-all defense for supporting the indefensible

Cynthia McKinney and her supporters may call any condemnation of her work with Matthias Chang, Michelle Renouf, David Pidcock, Mahathir Tun, Michael Collins Piper, Jöran "Israel Shamir" Jermas, Daryl Bradford Smith and Noel "Ognir" Ryan guilt by association, but by doing so, they help legitimize racism, anti-Semitism and far-right extremism, as does McKinney herself. While guilt by association might be a legitimate defense to merely talking with, attending the same meetings as, or even belonging to the same organizations as bigots, it is quite another matter to support them politically, tout their writings, promote their views, or actually work in their employ. By doing this, and by doing this with increasing frequency, McKinney has made precisely her association with bigotry the centerpiece of her message.

More importantly "guilt by association" refers to a legal standard for criminal acts: people cannot be held legally responsible for the acts of others unless they criminally participate in those acts as well. The standard by which we judge the character of political figures should be much higher than that. McKinney's supporters, in defending her work with racists and extremists, say "only hold her to the standard by which we judge criminal acts". A political figure whose followers hold to such a low standard must be doing something wrong. Besides, as I have shown above and in my earlier articles, this defense ignores what is now painfully obvious. McKinney is not just associating with people who do and say bad things, she is actively supporting those malicious acts and participating in them herself.

Other McKinney supporters defend her differently, claiming that she is well-intentioned, but is recklessly making ill-advised alliances. As the number of these alliances grows, and the connections grow deeper, this defense becomes less and less plausible. The fact that Cynthia McKinney has made common cause with bigots of the far-right with at least some knowledge of who they are indicates that her actions are based on a malice she shares with them. Cynthia McKinney has done nothing to distance herself from the overtly bigoted views espoused by so many of those she works with, even when they espouse these views to her in public forums. On the contrary, she has gone out of her way to agree with many of these views, and even to publish them on websites maintained by her or by the Green Party on her behalf. While in the past she mostly avoided using the word "Jew" in favor of "Zionist", with her publication of Shamir's speech, even this thin veil of propriety has disappeared. If McKinney had sincerely wished to distance herself from these views, she would have denounced her friends' bigotry long ago; instead, she has repeatedly gone out of her way to support it.

The idea that her guilt is merely "by association" is laughable. Her guilt is sometimes that of a silent, grinning supporter of her friends' racist rants, and at other times that of an active promoter of those views herself. Sometimes she has couched her feelings about Jews in language vague enough to hypocritically disavow ill intent, but no one with any pretense of opposing bigotry should be deceived. Nor should they tolerate the fact that she claims to support peace for Israel and Palestine while campaigning against a peace settlement. Those who have supported McKinney or have been drawn to any part of her message owe it to themselves to speak out against this.

Screen shot from Cynthia McKinney's Facebook page.

(NOTE: I've revised this article to include a paragraph about Horst Mahler's connection to "Israel Shamir" and two additional photographs. Thanks to Karl Pfeifer for much of that information. Pfeifer's 2005 article on "Shamir" and Mahler can be read here. Thanks as well to Gene of Harry's Place for his kind words and his link to this article -- read here.)

Monday, March 22, 2010

On two occasions in the past two days, columnist and author Max Blumenthal has stated in radio interviews that pro-Israel U.S. politicians are "quislings". A quisling, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is:

A traitor who serves as the puppet of the enemy occupying his or her country. [After Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), head of Norway's government during the Nazi occupation (1940-1945).]

Along with this charge that support for Israel equals treason, Blumenthal denounced supporters of Israel who "demonize Palestinians", specifically citing the example of a law professor whom he quoted as calling human rights workers "traitors". It would seem fair that those who quite reasonably seek to end "demonizing" and calling their adversaries traitors apply those same standards to themselves.

Other standards for debate should be applied evenhandedly as well. In spite of his equating support for Israel with Quisling's collaboration with Nazi Germany, Blumenthal went on in these interviews to condemn Israel's supporters for invoking the Holocaust for political purposes. He seemed unaware that he was doing so himself.

Blumenthal's reporting on the Republican Party and the far-right is praise-worthy and has made a valuable contribution to discussion of that subject. While his view of Israel is monolithically negative, some of his criticism is valid and much of the rest deserves serious consideration by those who disagree with it. Blumenthal did well to point out examples of anti-Arab bias, racism and downright stupidity among some of Israel's supporters. He did this in his video of the racist rants of drunk yeshiva students which was a YouTube hit last year. He did this by dissecting the insane apocalyptic preachings of Pastor Hagee and demanding that those who welcome Hagee's support contend with his madness. Blumenthal was condemned for painting all Zionists with a broad brush by portraying Hagee and drunken yeshiva students as representative of Zionism in general. Of course they aren't, and no reasonable person would think that they are. Such a claim denies the existence of liberal, anti-racist Zionism -- an argument which is easily refutable. Moreover, journalists shouldn't be condemned for airing dirty laundry -- that's their job. The truth of what they report is its own defense; and the facts in Blumenthal's videos speak for themselves. But now that Blumenthal has equated American Jewish support for Israel with collaboration with Nazi Germany, I wonder if I've been too kind in my assessment of his intentions.

[These interviews took place on WBAI's March 21 broadcast of Beyond the Pale and March 22 broadcast of Law and Disorder. The March 22 broadcast of Law and Disorderis currently available here and is archived here. The "quisling" charge occurs at 28:20 of the program. The March 21 broadcast of Beyond the Paleis currently available here and is archived here. The "quisling" charge occurs at 15:50.]

Zionists will no more save the Iranian Jews from being bombed than *they* did the European Jews before and during WWII--
ah, well, time to take my break from trying to expose the Zionists--

—

it's hard to be awake; it's easier to dream--

One of my blog posts linked to a tribute to Eustace Mullins, America's most prolific anti-Semitic author, posted on the official Ron Paul Campaign Forum website. (Mullins was the author of "Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation" , "The Biological Jew" and "The Curse of Canaan", among countless other similar books and pamphlets.) The comments here respond to the implicit warning to cease praising Mullins... with additional praise of him.

I think Eustace Mullens passing has earned atleast a reposting...
Legendary author of scores of books and pamphlets demolishing the lies of warmaking mainstream media, historian Eustace Mullins died Tuesday, Feb. 2, at the home of his caretaker in a small town in Texas.
“He was absolutely BRILLIANT in his research, writing and verbal presentations, and as honest a man and scholar as our country has ever produced. In all the interviews I had the great honor of doing with Eustace, he never ceased to amaze me…and to teach all of us critically-important truths about our world and the evil, satanic group that is and has been dominating it for far too long. HIs knowledge and wisdom about the controllers was simply astonishing.” said Jeff Rense.
Mullins, who would have been 87 in March, suffered a stroke three weeks ago in Columbus, Ohio. He had been on an extended tour of his admirers for much of the past year, visiting and chatting with many of his thousands of fans who jumped at the chance to buy his books from him in person.
The author of such incendiary books as “Secrets of the Federal Reserve, “Murder by Injection, and “The Curse of Canaan, Mullins was harrassed by the FBI for almost a half century, and had one of his books burned in Germany in the 1950s. These stories are recounted in one of his books, “A Writ for Martyrs.
A protege of the imprisoned patriotic poet Ezra Pound, Mullins compiled a well-researched raft of works that detailed the passage down through time of a hereditary group of banker killers who have essentially ruled the world from behind the scenes since ancient times.
“Eustace Mullins was the greatest political historian of the 20th century, and not just because he was not beholden to the power structure that deters candid reports about significant events, but because, guided by the greatest poet of the 20th century who was imprisoned for broadcasting for peace, his meticulous research eventually uncovered virtually every significant political secret of the last 400 years. “It, is a pity so many people are afraid to believe what Mullins told them, because it was much more of the truth than has ever been seen in our schools or our media.
Funeral arrangements and appropriate memorial information have yet to be released.

for his courage.
Maybe the angels in heaven will let him go and make a mercy visit to the global bankers who are cooling their heels in the 'hot place'--
(sorry, couldn't resist that)

—

it's hard to be awake; it's easier to dream--

Maybe I'm misreading the intentions of the Daily Paul. Are they warning Ron Paul supporters to be more discrete about their bigotry, or are they mocking the idea that such a thing should matter?

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, I decided to post a link to it in the comments to the Daily Paul post described above. Since my comment appeared there, the comment string has taken on a Lord of the Flies tone, with Paul supporters attacking each other (and me) viciously. Not surprisingly, those who frequent the Daily Paul are a bit paranoid about being observed, and have devised a web of conspiracies to explain the very obvious: that I found their post because it linked to my website. Through some sort of top secret illuminati technology, I'm able to tell how readers get to this blog. But, like 9/11, they believe that this blog post was an inside job. If you want a good laugh, go to the Daily Paul and check out how deranged these comments are. (Read here.)

Friday, March 12, 2010

Chronicles Magazine, which is published by the Rockford Institute, has published a grossly bigoted column by the aged paleo-conservative columnist Taki Theodoracopulos. You can read it in its entirety if you want here: Sachs of Gold . Here are three choice quotes:

Wall Street Sammy Glicks invented new ways to screw the public and further enrich themselves.

And this on Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld:

Actually, he’s a very homely, simian-looking Jew who couldn’t punch his way out of a nursery, but such are the joys of Wall Street legends.

After detailing the misdeeds committed by various Jews associated with the financial crisis, Theodoracopulos concludes:

Greenspan, Cohen, Blankfein, Rubin, Fuld—the list goes on. If ever you hear of some Anglo-Saxon name taking over Wall Street, make sure to plunge in. But don’t hold your breath.

Thanks Taki for diagnosing the cause of the financial crisis and give such sound advice. When investing, remember to avoid those simian-looking Jews.

(I get the sense that Chronicles may not be very widely read. The column has elicited only 6 comments. Feel free to drop by and share your thoughts about the column with their readership.)

I believe Taki’s a fan of Spengler, who said something like, these people will finally create money out of thin air and end up “tricking a profit” off every last piece of honest work on the planet. I can attest to the clannishness of the Chosen on the Street from my days as a municipal bond broker. Their collusion and conspiracy are right in everyone’s face, but no one dares open his mouth. “You’ll never work in this town again” speaks more about Wall Street than it ever did about Hollywood.

2.2 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 8 March 2010:

In 17th century England Mr. Blankfein would have been boiled in oil (literally) for his financial chicanery. Caroline England was clearly a more enlightened place than our own.

3.3 Comment by Andrew Stanton on 9 March 2010:

Let us not forget that two of the biggest villains in the saga went by the names of Mozillo and Cassano.

4.4 Comment by Toby Katz on 10 March 2010:

I used to read Taki (with great pleasure) in National Review. I had no idea he was such an ugly anti-Semite. What a crushing disappointment. The great man, William Buckley, would have booted him out if he’d known what atavistic hatred lurked in Taki’s heart.

5.5 Comment by Jon I. on 10 March 2010:

@ #4

So criticism of any Jew, no matter how criminal their action, is anti-Semitic?

By the way, if Mr. Theodoracopulos is anti-Semitic, at least he’s a fair one and doesn’t play sides in the Semitic civil war in the Levant. From what I’ve read he’s not very fond of Arabs either.

6.6 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 11 March 2010:

William F. Buckley – a “great man”?

7.7 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 11 March 2010:

Mr Buckley’s CIA conservatism was behind the destruction of the Old Right coalition – there is nothing great about him.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

In an interview with Brian Goldsmith of the Atlantic, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has refused to distance himself from the views of the John Birch Society. (Read here.)

BRIAN GOLDSMITH: But I'd imagine you would repudiate some of the more extreme elements in the Tea Party movement like the John Birch Society.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: Where did you come up with that? The John Birch society still exists?

BRIAN GOLDSMITH: Evidently they do, and they were welcomed and helped sponsor the CPAC Conference.

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: Maybe they do. Look, I don't go around endorsing organizations. I go around trying to persuade people that I'm right.

BRIAN GOLDSMITH: But do you think there are any elements inside the Tea Party movement--for example, the John Birch Society--that are beyond the pale, that are too extreme? Or would you embrace all of it?

SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: I really don't know how to answer a question like that. This is a big complex country. Those of us who are elected to office state our positions and attract support where we can find it. I don't go around announcing every day who I don't like and from whom I don't accept support.

The rest of the interview focused on Alexander's views on heath care reform (he opposes it) and the teaparty movement (he supports it).

In courting the teaparty crowd, Sen. Alexander has gone where many of his mainstream Republican predecessors have refused to go. Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and most other prominent Republican figures until very recently have had no difficulty renouncing the John Birch Society's views as extreme.

The John Birch Society is most notable for its promotion of conspiracy theories concerning Communist influence at the highest levels of U.S. government, purported plots by the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Council on Foreign Relations, U.N., Bilderbergers, Illuminati, etc. to institute "one world government", and opposition to fluoridation of drinking water. It's founder, candy magnate Robert W. Welch, Jr., infamously charged at various times that President Dwight Eisenhower was either a Soviet agent, a Communist Party member, or had been installed by a Communist conspiracy (read here). Welch and his JBS also helped keep alive the isolationist smear campaign which alleged that President Roosevelt knew about Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor, but deliberately allowed it to happen in order to force the United States to enter World War II. In many ways, the John Birch Society provided the template which other conspiracy theory advocates -- including birthers, truthers and death panelists -- have followed.

Sen. Alexander's courting of the teaparty crowd may not be quite as successful as he hoped. The John Birch Society's magazine, The New American, gives Alexander's voting record a score of 22% on their "Freedom Index" scale. (Read pdf here. See page 10.)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

I'm taking one of my occasional strolls through the strange world of Ron Paul's campaign website -- just checking out the peculiar scenery and reporting back to you about what I've seen. The Campaign For Liberty website, formerly known as the Ron Paul Forum (one of his 2008 presidential campaign's official websites), is now a place where his supporters gather to discuss issues and organize present and future campaigns. I've taken a quick look at what's been published by these Ron Paul supporters within the past several weeks, and what's been allowed by the websites moderators.

"One of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against this country was the Federal Reserve Act passed in 1913..."

but quickly gets to the point:

Were you aware that in most wars the same international bankers financed both sides of the conflict? If you do not believe this, I encourage you to do some research to see who financed the Bolshevik Revolution and the Allied and Axis powers during World War l and World War ll. Now, compare the foreign policy of the United States today that continues to give billions of dollars and military aid each year to Israel and also money to the Palestinians. When is this insanity going to end?

In many countries of Europe today any remarks or criticism about Israel or comments questioning the details of the "Holocaust" could land you in jail. Moreover if the United States Global Anti-Semitic Review Act of 2004 were enforced in this country, the same thing could happen here. Due to the news media's silence on this issue most people don't even know that this act exists, or how serious of a threat it is to our constitutional rights of "Freedom of Speech."

My book "Secrets of our Hidden Controllers Revealed" elaborates on the issues discussed here and, hopefully, will encourage the public to begin researching these issues, so that they can prepare themselves to elect those politicians that will make the necessary changes to once, again, make this the greatest country in the world!

This writer then spells out his platform in a series of bullet points, starting with standard libertarian fare, then descending to the following:

(12) Prohibit the military industrial complex companies, the elite banking interests, the oil companies, and the Israeli lobby from dictating United States foreign policy.

(13) Revise high school and college text books to include honest discussions of the Federal Reserve Banking System, Fractional Reserve Banking, the origin of money, the history of the House of Rothschild banking interests, and the part that Wall Street investment groups like the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs and Blackstone have on our country's monetary and foreign policies.

Include discussions of groups like the "Council on Foreign Relations", the "Bilderbergers", The "Trilateral Commission", and the "International Monetary Fund." Explain how members of these groups, which, by the way, are not elected, control the domestic and foreign policies of this country.

...and...

(18) Repeal the Global Anti-Semitic Review Act of 2004 that makes it illegal to criticize the country of Israel or individual Jews.

(19) Learn to make use of "Initiatives" and Referendums" (ballot measures or propositions) at the state level, if your legislature fails to act in a responsible way.

Note: Prepare your own platform list and then pressure your representatives to make the necessary changes to cure our ailing nation. Make it clear that you intend to vote for only those candidates who support the majority of these issues.

Don't be tricked by those who want you to believe that this is a battle between the Democrats' and the Republicans' ideologies. Regardless of your party affiliations these are the issues that will continue to affect you, your children, great grandchildren, and even their children. It is imperative that you address these issues and be a part of the movement for real change.

Flinchpaugh, in addition to blogging for the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty website and writing his self-published book, also acts as a local coordinator for the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty in St. Joseph, Missouri. (Read here.) The Global Anti-Semtism Review Act of 2004 (read here), which he argues will end free speech and bring down the republic, mandates only that the U.S. State Department issue an annual report on acts of anti-Semitic violence and propaganda promoting such acts. It in no way penalizes discussion about Jews or Israel as Flinchpaugh claims. In fact, it doesn't call for penalties of any kind -- just reporting on violence and promotion of violence.

Let's move on to the next oddity, an odd little blog post which takes O'Reilly's War on Christmas meme to a new level of Glenn Beck paranoia (read here). This post decries the

unison of all religious beliefs under the authoritarian phrase 'happy holidays'...

(W)hy does any faith have to water down its own beliefs by being inclusive with another belief(?) Jews clearly don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah while Christians do so why do these two faiths have to share a holiday together? Don't they oppose each other naturally? ...

The authoritarian has told us this lie in order to collectivize every individual into a single mass of one collective personal identity... (T)hen the only thing he has to do is to manipulate that single identity in order to manipulate the entire mass.

Who knew that saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" during the holiday season would lead to a communist dictatorship? I was sad to see that the author of this post was Thomas Paine. His work has really gone downhill.

Moving onward, we come to a dark place of the soul, a post called (oddly) "Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, et alia, Financial Terrorists". The author, who calls himself huntingtonsteam, fears that Satan's minions brought about the world financial crisis to bring about the Apocalypse. It's incoherence makes it hard to summarize, so here's an extended excerpt:

The government refusing to let us use real silver and gold coins as money and forcing us by legal tender laws to continue using Fed notes may very well be leading up to a type of the cashless society of Rev 13 or the actual Rev 13 end times.

The Establishment has no fear of punishment at a final Judgement administered by the risen Jesus Christ, Gods Son. The Establishment in their willing ignorance is following the lead of the shadow govt. whose members really are Lucifer followers, as extreme as that concept my be, check out 'The Lucis Trust'.

"The prayer room in the UN HQ is looked after by the LucisTrust (founded in 1929 as LuciferTrust(!), in 1932 renamedLucisTrust). This trust was founded by Alice Bailey (1880-1949), one of the main founders of the New Age philosophy. The LucisTrust has "Consultative Status", permitting it a close working relationship with UN-bodies and participation in the weekly sessions.

- There are two sides to the Lucis' agenda: the influencing (manipulation) of high positioned politicians towards a New World Order, and the manipulation through occult means to manifest the Plan of the Hierarchy, so establishing the new world religion, in which Lucifer is worshiped."

Rev. 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

The dragon is Lucifer, the Devil.

Rev. 13:15 And there was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

As US citizens if we don't have legal use of silver and gold coinage and don't repeal national legal tender laws then we are heading toward either a type of the 'beast' cashless society or we will be at the doorstep ready to walk through the doorway into the end times having to face in reality 'the beast coming up out of the earth' .

If this is only a type of the 'beast' cashless society than it is the sworn duty of every Christian to oppose with all their strength this evil. And if it is not known to be a type or the real thing than it is still the duty of anyone calling themselves Christian to fight this evil and oppose it because it is in fact, 'evil' usury.

Rev. 13:16-17 and he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead and that no one should be able to buy or to sell , except the one who has the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.

I know usury is sinful and evil because God says so in Ezekial 18:5 But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, 6 hath....7 and..., and hath covered the naked with a garment ; 8 He hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, 8....

And, the sentence of death from God for the practitioner of usury, Ezekial 18:10-13 If he beget a son a robber, a shedder of blood and that doeth the like to one of these, 11And... , 12 Hath..., 13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.

So God the judge of all men through his prophet Ezekial passes the death sentence upon the one involved in usury. Pretty extreme? Maybe why the church in the middle ages forbade usury, as it has destructive consequences which we are all witnessing firsthand in our economy which has been taken over for the most part by the purveyors of usury, the International Banking Elites such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase , et alia. (sic)

Which is worse, fractional reserve banking or usury? Usury is mixed up in fractional reserve banking from the start so without usury what is fractional reserve banking? Just using paper for exchange if it is feasable (sic) to do so without being a counterfeiter, which I think what fractional reserve banking is at its basis, counterfeiting.

The Word of God in Ezekial vs. oral law of modern day Pharisees, Banker Blankfein

The problem with the Hebrews through Ezekials time was usury, and the problem persists until now, which does not make it any less evil and sinful. Look at the destruction of our economy and try to say usury does not have some big hand in where we are today. We are where we are because of it.

Also, the Words and Word of God has not been held in any high regard by the Hebrews, which was the complaint Jesus had with the Pharisees who held the traditions of men, i.e. the Talmud writings,i.e. Oral Law, in higher stead than the commandments of God. Jesus pronounced many woes upon the Talmudic "Oral Law" lawyers , the Pharisees and Scribes, because they followed the Oral law first, putting it before the commands of God found in the prophets writings such as Ezekial.

Isn't that why someone like Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein can boast he is doing Gods work? The contents of the Talmud must contain writings that can be construed to endorse usury and destruction of the economy of those people not followers of the Blankfein philosophy of rightouseness (sic) which I suspect is a version of modern day Pharisees based wholly if not entirely on the Talmud traditions.

The contention that Talmudic believers trust the Talmud, Oral law, first and the word of God second , or third or not at all is Biblical because it is the same pattern described by Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark , Luke and John in his encounters with those who held to the Traditions of men and did not hold to the commandments of God contained in the writings of Moses and the prophets.

Of course those religious Judeans who considered themselves descendents (sic) of Abraham opposed Jesus, calling him iligitimate (sic) and wanted to destroy him. John 8:57 Then said the jews (sic) unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59 Then they took up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst o them, and so passed by.

I understand the current version of the Talmud contains writings refering (sic) to the Lord Jesus in a derogatory manner quite blasphemous, and they also don't recognize the Virgin birth of Jesus, the incarnation of the eternal Son of God in the Virgin Mary. This is to say that the practitioners of the Talmud writings are as opposed as the devil is to the morals and Person of Christ.

Audit the Fed, get rid of Senators who favor the Fed

We need Senators who will help get an audit of the Fed Reserve, who will help us get rid of legal tender laws and help reestablish silver and gold coins as everyday tender, untaxed and legal.

Looking back at hungtingtonsteam's earlier posts, I can see why he's so disoriented. He's been reading the works of anti-Semitic author Eustace Mullins. He's also posted a brief excerpt of one on the Campaign for Liberty website here. That asks the timeless question:

"will we continue to be enslaved by the Babylonian debt money system which was set up by the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 to complete our total destruction?"

A recent discovery - in October of 2009 - has been suppressed by the main stream media but has been circulating among the "big money" brokers and financial kingpins and is just now being revealed to the public. It involves the gold in Fort Knox - the US Treasury gold - that is the equity of our national wealth. In short, millions (with an "m") of gold bars are fake!

Who did this? Apparently our own government... (r)oughly 15 years ago - during the Clinton Administration [think Robert Rubin, Sir Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers]...

Interestingly, GATA's Bill Murphy speculated about this back in 2004; "Why is Rothschild leaving the gold business at this time my colleagues and I conjectured today? Just a guess on my part, but [I] suspect something is amiss. They know a big scandal is coming and they don't want to be a part of it... [The] Rothschild (sic) wants out before the proverbial "S" hits the fan."

Crime solved! Thanks for that. Now about the mystery of the provenance of that conspiracy theory: the post was copied verbatim from the Pakistan Daily website (read here).

Here's a post that touts "33 Conspiracy Theories that Turned out to be True", put on the site by someone calling himself illuminati hater. Mysteriously, only 26 conspiracy theories appear in the post. I assume the Illuminati are responsible for deleting the other 7. The column, which was authored by Jonathan Elinoff of something called the New World Order Report, not surprisingly cites the following as an example of a conspiracy theory which is true:

22. The New World Order: This popular conspiracy theory claims that a small group of international elites controls and manipulates governments, industry and media organisations worldwide. The primary tool they use to dominate nations is the system of central banking. They are said to have funded and in some cases caused most of the major wars of the last 200 years, primarily through carrying out false flag attacks to manipulate populations into supporting them, and have a grip on the world economy, deliberately causing inflation and depressions at will. The people behind the New World Order are thought to be international bankers, in particular the owners of the private banks in the Federal Reserve System, Bank of England and other central banks, and members of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group. Now, although this conspiracy theory was ridiculed for years, it turns out that the Bilderberg does meet and requests no media coverage. They receive no media coverage. The world's elite meet every year and it goes largely unreported, for what?

Discussions at the meetings include the economy, world affairs, war and in general, world policy. After the financial collapse, the Bilderberg played a key role in proposing that the world prepare for a new world order and have a standard world currency. This was propsed shortly after by almost all attendees of the Bilderberg meeting. During the 20th century, many statesmen, such as Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, used the term "new world order" to refer to a new period of history evidencing a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power after World War I and World War II. They all saw these periods as opportunities to implement idealistic or liberal proposals for global governance only in the sense of new collective efforts to identify, understand, or address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve. These proposals led to the creation of international organizations, such as the United Nations and N.A.T.O., and international regimes, such as the Bretton Woods system and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which were calculated both to maintain a balance of power as well as regularize cooperation between nations, in order to achieve a peaceful phase of capitalism. In the aftermath of the two World Wars, progressives welcomed these new international organizations and regimes but argued they suffered from a democratic deficit and therefore were inadequate to not only prevent another global war but also foster global justice. American banker David Rockefeller joined the Council on Foreign Relations as its youngest-ever director in 1949 and subsequently became chairman of the board from 1970 to 1985; today he serves as honorary chairman. In 2002, Rockefeller authored his autobiography Memoirs wherein, on page 405, he wrote:

"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents ... to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

Thus, activists around the globe formed a world federalist movement bent on creating a "real" new world order. A number of Fabian socialist intellectuals, such as British writer H. G. Wells in the 1940s, appropriated and redefined the term "new world order" as a synonym for the establishment of a full-fledged social democratic world government. In the 1960s, a great deal of right-wing conspiracist attention, by groups like the John Birch Society and the Liberty Lobby, focused on the United Nations as the vehicle for creating the "One World Government", and contributed to a conservative movement for United States withdrawal from the U.N.. American writer Mary M. Davison, in her 1966 booklet The Profound Revolution, traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System in 1913 by international bankers, who she claimed later formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921 as the shadow government. At the time the booklet was published, "international bankers" would have been interpreted by many readers as a reference to a postulated "international Jewish banking conspiracy" masterminded by the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. American televangelist Pat Robertson with his 1991 best-selling book The New World Order became the most prominent Christian popularizer of conspiracy theories about recent American history as a theater in which Wall Street, the Federal Reserve System, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group, and Trilateral Commission control the flow of events from behind the scenes, nudging us constantly and covertly in the direction of world government for the Antichrist.

That's all for now. There's just too much to see in this freak show. One blog post can't do the Campaign for Liberty justice. I leave you with this oldie but goody which has been posted on the Ron Paul campaign's website since December 7, 2008, "Free American interviews An Avowed Zionist" posted by freeamerican:

THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION

The most feared and hated document ever published!

An Original Translation from the Early 1900s

A Forgery. . . or a Blueprint of the New World Order?

Is it a Jewish plot or a clever ploy by the someone else to blame the Jews? You be the judge after you read this issue of the Free American!

It is to him and his ADL AND MOSSAD friends that I dedicate this issue because it is more powerful than the Protocols about unmasking the perpetrators of a centuries old rape and pillage of the world’s people! Lee states that the Protocols are a forgery and I should take them off my site. I call that censorship and I will not do that. Keep in mind that what he says COULD BE TRUE! But Whoever wrote them are long since dead. Once you read them and understand the psychology behind the plan for one world government is what is happening today. Whether is is the Jews, Muslims, bankers, Masons or the Christian Jesuits is something you need to determine by diligent research. No matter which group is behind the push for One World Government or the New World Order, it is a plan that is in conflict with Christian philosophy upon which this Country and its Constitution is founded. It represents a form of Global Slavery.

Just as William Wallace stood up to the British, and our Founding Fathers fought the Empire on which the sun never sets, if I get your backing and support, I will continue my fight against the New World Order.

From the beginning I have been demonized and marginalized by organizations like the ADL. Why? In the beginning I, like most Americans, had no idea who was behind the atrocities and wars we sacrificed our men and women for. I want to stress that I am not hostile to any race or religion unless that race or religion is pure evil or Satanic. That does not mean EVERY JEW or MUSLIM or CHRISTIAN is EVIL, unless they refuse to recognize the evil around them or choose consciously to ignore it. If you ignore this plea and refuse to get involved, they you become part of the problem and not a solution.

listen to the words of Benjamin Freedman, the Jew that told the truth about the first World War!

This is good, A Zionist Accuses the Film Maker of being a Communist or in the pay of the Arabs to make Jews Look Bad! He wants me to take this off my site.

IF AMERICANS ONLY KNEW!

HEAR THE TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL

HOW AMERICA WAS STOLEN BY A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT! FULlL LENGTH FILM WITH CONGRESSMAN PAUL FINDLEY.

Clay Douglas

Douglas also offers in the post a DVD for $25 and gives a link to his website. If you do pay a visit to Clayton Douglas' Free American website (read here), you'll be greeted by a banner featuring a smiling photograph of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and the following headline: "Ernst Zundel freed by the Sons of Satan, The Antichrist, Edomite, Bolshevik Jews. Ernst told the truth: there was no "Holocaust" of lying Jews, only a "Holocaust OF Christians" BY lying Jews in WWII."

Thanks, Ron Paul, for letting Clayton Douglas advertise on your campaign website free of charge for over two years.